Yazidis who fled abroad after 2014 ISIS attacks amounts to 100,000

Since the beginning of Islamic State’s (ISIS) attacks against Yazidis in northern Iraq in August 2014, 100,000 Yazidi Kurds fled abroad. 

Following the attacks on Yazidi homeland Sinjar (Shengal) and its surroundings, also known as the Yazidi Genocide, 360,000 of the 550,000 Yazidis living in the region were displaced, and that only 150,000 people have returned to their homes since the end of the ISIS occupation, the Yazidi Rescue Office announced.

The number of kidnapped Yazidis who could not be rescued from ISIS was recorded 2,717, the office said, Kurdistan24 news website reported on Tuesday. 

Thousands of civilians were killed and thousands of women and children were enslaved by the ISIS in August 2014. ISIS attack also resulted in the complete displacement of the Yazidi people living in the region south of Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq. In May last year, a United Nations team investigating ISIS attacks has found “clear and convincing evidence that the crimes against the Yazidi people clearly constituted genocide."

 While 6,554 Yazidi Kurds, (3,548 women and 2,869 men) were kidnapped by ISIS, 3,554 of them have been rescued, according to the findings of the office.

The number of hostages that could not be rescued from ISIS was announced as 2,717 (1273 women and 1444 men), while 1,293 Yazidis were subjected to genocide, it said.

Eighty-two mass graves of Yazidi Kurds were discovered, and 68 Yazidi shrines were blown up, the Yazidi Rescue Office said.